What is the purpose of pay-to-post? To improve trust. To reduce spam. To show appreciation for 'good posts' and thoughtful contributions to Stacker News... so that Stacker News is better.

That goes beyond currency.

The same with email - when someone creates an email client (it may even exist already) whereby to email someone you have to zap them 10 sats... it will reduce spam overall. But it's not about the payment it's about building trust and consequences for cooperation.

THAT'S Bitcoin's killer use case - trust maximization, the elimination of intermediaries, and peer to peer payments that improve trust under a transparent monetary network. I think that goes way beyond currency.

As the Dollar depreciates and 'goes down' every year Bitcoin will 'go up'. The same with houses, cars, jewelry, art, stocks... everything that people use as a store of value.

Our money is broken because trust is broken... trust that the government won't simply 'print more' of the money it wants people to use thereby devaluing the currency people work for.

So saying people should 'spend their bitcoin' is like saying people should 'spend their house' or 'spend their jewelry' or 'spend their gold' yes sure they can spend those things if they want but I think that misses the point. Until that day that fiat no longer exists... Bitcoin will be 'digital property' or 'digital collateral' used for savings and to improve trust. Instead of saving in real estate or gold or stocks... people will just... save in Bitcoin because its' simpler and better and Bitcoin will 'go up' the same way the stock market or real estate goes up as the dollar debases every year.

As far as Bitcoin as a currency... one day there will be a conflict - say Russia Ukraine, India Pakistan, China Taiwan etc... and as part of that conflict the resolution will be a multisig wherein the combatants hold keys to the multisig and the other key is held by a neutral third party (governing body, neutral nation state etc).

If the terms of the 'peace agreement' are broken the Bitcoin will be collaboratively moved punishing the party that broke the terms. At which point the awarded party will hold the Bitcoin... until that time they wish to dispose of it, send it, use it as collateral sell it etc.

This isn't something that happens with currency normally... but it is something that happens with Land.

It just makes me think of Bitcoin less like 'currency' and more like property or real estate, perfect collateral, something that holds its value but is simpler than stocks or bonds for users to save in. In which case it doesn't need to 'go up' but simply maintain purchasing power as fiat debases yearly.

The point I was trying to make in my original post.. was that government debt and inflation is the #1 force driving people to Bitcoin. It's not censorship resistance (although that is important) it is government debt and money-printing. Without those things and the perverse incentives people would not be flocking to Bitcoin today to nearly the same extent.

Isn't this all just noise to be ignored? I don't care what JP morgan does or any of the banks.

To be honest however... if the bank I used 'closed my accounts' I would get it framed too.

It is for micropayments though, which is what the article is about... Yes Lightning is niche. I don't know... anyone else in person who knows what it is/much less has used it.

But I don't think it will be that way forever.

Have always bought Bitcoin for cash/with cash/directly. Never traded never had a 'trading' account. Even if I wanted to 'trade' I wouldn't know where to start.

What's even the point? Don't know much about the crypto market.

Purge the spam because core 'hates' bitcoin and wants to 'destroy' it. It sounds like bcash from 2017 shouldn't it be obvious?

I wish these guys, in all honesty and sincerity, would just fork off so they can 'save' Bitcoin.

I run multiple Core nodes that I actually use they tell me what Bitcoin is. I don't need internet influencers to do that with 'temporary changes' that freeze coins based on their 'saving things'.

I wish all Human beings good will and good fortune... however to these guys good riddance.

There is no "core v30" pandora's box it's nonsense.

If I have the sats and that's ALL I have (I have no fiat whatsoever) and you HAVE a sandwhich...

And I'm hungry enough I WILL trade the sats for a sandwhich.

It doesn't matter if I think the Sats are "going up" what am I going to do, not eat?

Technology is deflationary. TVs Computers Phones etc get cheaper almost every year but somehow "noone buys them" and "noone consumes them" "because they'll be cheaper next year..." so "everyone waits..."

It's total BS. That's not what actually happens and it's not how people act. People want stuff NOW even if they think it will be cheaper "next year" they don't care they want the computer or electronics now because life isn't forever.

Why the hell do people do their Christmas shopping 'now'... if they could just wait till "next year" and do their Christmas shopping when electronics are "cheaper?" All the stores are full of people around Christmas.

And worse all the inflation does is create and worsen inequality... because people complain about "high prices" when all that happens is their fiat loses value.

This is the craziest thing I've ever seen

Is this AI?

I've made post after post about this exact issue. Hodling is OK but ultimately it's not enough... Using Bitcoin is where the magic happens because it is so much more important than fiat.

Thanks. I have no interest in the 'fork' or forked coins frankly. I don't want to sell them or interact with them... based on what @nerd2ninja said doing so could compromise the 'current' Bitcoin keys and so I don't want anything to do with them.

THIS is exactly what I wanted to ask. Should I close all my Lightning channels now, just in case?

I read @nerd2ninja 's post and it said your coins can be spent on the 'other' network if you spend them on this one...

Does that effect Lightning? Thank you

I believe it will probably happen. The anti-spam people (who apparently never transact) want to stop/remove the spam and are concerned about csam/cp/illegal content getting in the chain.

So they are proposing a hard-fork + chain rollback.

I agree

The issue, in my opinion, and the reason we generally have the spam to begin with... is because blockspace is being underutilized.

Most of the day every day fees aren't 1 sat/vbyte. They are (.2) sat/vbyte or less in other words practically free. The spam is free. So no wonder you get blocks full of it.

I would support a block-size decrease soft-fork before I supported bip-444 or whatever... people dumping data into the Witness field isn't the problem. The problem is that they have almost nothing else (no other demand) to compete with.

No Demand? Free blockspace? Expect to get junk. More valuable space? That people have to bid for? Get more valuable transactions.

Smaller blocks would force the market to reprice blockspace... take up less hard-disk space, and ultimately make the network more efficient. It wouldn't require goofy 'emergency activation' or 'chain rollbacks' if it were widely agreed to.

Keep the witness discount but just reduce block size by like... 50%. It's simple. It's good for nodes too. Wouldn't that be better than a contentious bip?

Maybe everyone around us is already using Bitcoin... meaning they don't really care about Core vs Knots.

And we just don't even know it.

You invest, but with memes.